Wednesday, September 23, 2009

I could not vote for new artist of the year. This is unbelievable. I love Randy Houser and Zac Brown equally. Randy writes and performs like a champ, and Zac writes, sings and plays the living daylight out of a guitar. Of course, Jamey Johnson hit us with an album that's so good, it touches your heart like Hank Williams did in the early '50s. Jake Owen is so good looking, and Darius Rucker is such a star.

"Jake Owen is so good looking." Really now. CMW at Country California called it a burn, and I can definitely see where he's coming from -- but even if it wasn't it still makes Hazel Smith look really shallow. I don't have his new album, but Jake Owen's 2006 debut album was one of the best cds I bought last year. He has a great voice -- so good I think it even redeems lighter fare like "Something About A Woman" and "Yee Haw," and on the more meaty songs like the title track (the song I bought the cd for), "Places To Run," and "Ghosts" I honestly think he shows potential for true greatness. (Owen and Chuck Jones wrote "Ghosts" for Kenny Chesney; let me just say I am glad Chesney passed on it, because I am quite sure he could not have done it justice.) I don't know if he's on the level that Jamey Johnson is, but I still think Jake Owen is damn good for a mainstream Nashville artist. And if all Country Music Association voter Hazel Smith could say about him was that he's "so good looking," then it's really no wonder Nashville country music's in such sad shape -- no matter what she said about Jamey Johnson.

Unorganized Militia Propaganda Corps

About Me

I am a very opinionated guy, Texan and quite proud of it. I lean toward the right politically but have a few libertarian tendencies that my conservative brothers and sisters might not agree with. I like guns, old country music and a lot of other things.

Essential Reading

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty -- so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator -- and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.-- Cesare Beccaria, in On Crimes And Punishments, later quoted by Thomas Jefferson

Echo

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.-- Alexander Hamilton